Crazy Streak

John Gilmore has been recognized for decades for his unsettling exposes and noir prose. One critic dubbed him "the literary Hannibal Lecter." For certain, Gilmore sets his scenes masterfully while zeroing in on human lusts and frailties. His work is often shocking but always well written. Characters are so sharply drawn we walk in their skins. Bobby McGee is fresh out of the Army, hoping for a new start away from his dreary hometown in the California desert. The father who terrorized him in his boyhood is now an incontinent vegetable, cared for at home by Bobby's mother. His mother is still young and attractive, plotting her escape from suffocating circumstances. Bobby's brother, Woody, strung out on drugs and alcohol, is often unpredictable and dangerous. The woman who loves Bobby is now fat, hooked up unofficially with his best friend, Clyde, the Mayor's son. His first day back, a car wreck throws Bobby together with Jo, a seductive 13-year-old nymphet. Bobby's friends all know he's always had a crazy streak, but his obsession for Jo is out of character for him. After the accident one friend is dead and another nearly so, but Bobby's life revolves around his insatiable lust for Jo. And Jo may not be the innocent child she seems to be at first. Law enforcement officers investigating the accident are determined to protect Clyde. Bribery escalates to incest, and then murder. And as a backdrop Gilmore drags readers into the heat, dust, and misery of small town life. As one character tells Bobby, "People are all s. o. b's. when you peel the hide off." John Gilmore is a VERY good writer. His characters and subjects may be dark, but his prose is exceptional. review by Laurel Johnson

John Gilmore nearly killed me with this boiling cauldron of California desolation and despair. This is the 'Lolita' for the 21st century, and the misery,desperation and sexual obsession mingle and kick into high gear from the opening page onward. I thought Gilmore's L.A. Despair was the ultimate in disected human trials and reckless abandon, and although Crazy Streak is a work of fiction, it becomes so vivid and real one would swear they are spying on the real lives of some truly agonized and desperate characters from real life! The story of these isolated, searching and damaged souls kept me from putting this thing down but just a few times. Cinderella-from-hell, Jo Pollinger turns several lives upside down within hours of showing up bursting with volatile hormones at the windswept Gas & Eats, but her smoldering ripeness is only a fraction of what is about to rip apart this festering, decomposing cluster of shacks on the California map. Angst-ridden rednecks, car wrecks, child rape, incest and an entire spectrum of suffering and intrigue carry the reader along on a rollercoaster that rarely allows one to catch their breath. I could not anticipate ANY of the twists and turns of this white-hot story; Gilmore's brilliant originality caught me off guard every time, all the way to the shocking revelation of Bobby McGee's wounded Madonna-like mother, and the subtle but powerful ending, which I don't believe anyone will see coming. The good people and the bad all became REAL to me instantly; I felt I could reach out and touch them and imagined what they all looked like, how they moved, how they sounded and on and on. Rarely has a work of fiction pulled me into its reality, for lack of better word, and gripped my mind the way Crazy Streak did. One helluva great read. Paul Waters

I have just read CRAZY STREAK and the dust and desolation of the setting, the desperation of the characters, the poignant, pitiful struggling for acknowledgement and love, sticks mercilessly to the reader, the test of high class literature. I am reminded of the film, East of Eden, updated and carried to wild extremes. CRAZY STREAK proves that outstanding literary novels are still being published in America. Excellent!

A half century has passed and though the yellow-haired nymph or queen of adolescent allure is only two years older than Nobokov's Lolita, she has bloomed into one hip chick and a super-sexy know-it-all. She shows up at the burned-out desert Gas and Eats where there is no gas or anything to eats. Her ample young boobs are bulging unsupported and her bare thighs are golden by the blazing sun. She has yellow eyes to boot and our hero has never seen a girl with yellow eyes. He is told she is "jail-bait" but he doesn't care and falls for her nonetheless. Bravo to Scapegoat Publishing for having the courage to take on John Gilmore's kinky novel. I imagine the author has no doubt had a time with publishers unwilling to take the bombardment of mediocrity's rank and file and the right-wing religious. I do not personally know of another literary work so explicitly sexy without falling over the edge into the realm of the hardcore. Key scenes in CRAZY STREAK, a work as rich in eroticism as it is in literary merit, has the underage girl taking the reins, as it were. She runs the show. The character of Bobby, well of age who falls for this busty child-Cinderella, is a ripe portrait of the present-day young misfit at odds with everyone and almost everything, except the nymphet, though at one point he seems quite willing to strangle her. As a pre-teen he is raped by the local pastor, later is seduced by his Madonna-looking mother, and seek some mysterious absolution in a Mojave setting as bleak and dusty as a lunar landscape. Emotionally, he is without redemption. Edgy and relentless; CRAZY STREAK is an excellent, exciting work in today's otherwise bland, commercially-oriented world of publishing. A work highly recommended for readers of uncompromising, literary fiction.

I have been an avid fan of John Gilmore for many years and have read all his books. This latest one, Crazy Streak, is one of his very best and I can unreservedly recommend it. It details the adventures of a band of young people who drift in and out of one problem after another, surrounded by complexities and tensions of sex, lust, booze, jealousy, violence and sheer cussedness without seeming end. The characterizations are powerfully and sharply done and you can see each of them with vivid and distinct imagery. I would recommend you buy this book and enjoy!